Two dead after private jet crashes into Indiana neighborhood

WNDU-TV | REUTERS | BDN

WNDU-TV | REUTERS | BDN

Firefighters and rescue workers look over the scene in South Bend, Indiana in this March 17, 2013 photo courtesy WNDU-TV after a small twin-jet aircraft crashed into houses near the South Bend Regional Airport.

A private jet crashed into several homes while trying to land at an airport in northern Indiana on Sunday, killing two people and injuring three others, officials said.

The pilot of the Beechcraft Premier 1 reported experiencing electrical problems and made repeated approaches to land at the airport in South Bend before the jet stalled and crashed, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

The jet took off from Tulsa, Oklahoma, she said.

It was not immediately clear if those killed were aboard the plane or on the ground, said Captain Philip Trent, a spokesman for the South Bend Police Department. The jet was carrying four passengers at the time of the accident, he said.

The plane clipped at least one house and damaged two others, Trent said.

“There was large fuel discharge that caused an evacuation” in the area after the crash, he added.

Pictures of the plane showed it lodged inside a house. “The fuselage and the cockpit of the plane are embedded in a residence which is structurally unsound,” Trent said.

(Additional reporting by David Dawson, Writing by Kevin Gray; Editing by Paul Simao)